Ninety-Two
by jojospn
Summary: "Whoa, don't have a heart attack! You're not 92 yet!" Ford reflects on those he has lost as his ninety-second birthday approaches. Based on Bill Cipher's line from "The Last Mabelcorn". Rated T for safety.


**A/N: Based on the flashback in "The Last Mabelcorn" when Bill hints when Ford will die and how. As always, I don't own** _ **Gravity Falls,**_ **all rights to Alex Hirsch. Enjoy! Note, for this, I am going on the theory that the baby in "A Tale of Two Stans" is not Sherman Pines, but Dipper and Mabel's dad, Sherman's son. It is claimed that Shermie is a younger sibling, and so I'm guessing that he is only a few years younger, and that Shermie is about fifteen. It's canon that Ford is sucked through the portal in 1982, and that this happened ten years following his falling out with Stan (making that 1972). Since the falling out happened when the Stan twins were 17, in 82 they would be 27. Using simple math, they would have been born in `1955.**

 **Ninety-Two**

Stanford Pines' first experience with death following his return from the portal happens four years after that fateful summer of 2012 with the loss of his younger brother, Sherman. Lung cancer, even though Shermie had never touched the things in his life. No doubt all the years of second hand smoke their father had exposed the Pines boys to had been to blame. Reading the obituary online aboard the _Stan O'War II,_ Ford found himself laughing rather bitterly at the irony. _It's always the non smokers who get lung cancer. Pa smoked like a chimney and died of natural causes in his nineties._ The funeral was to be held in Piedmont in a few days; even with the (illegal) high speed connection he had managed to hook up to the vessel, being stuck in the middle of the North Atlantic, there was no way to be able to attend. And so he and Stan had sent Dipper and Mabel their condolences. Ford had sent a recorded message dressed in his twin's usual suit and fez, painfully aware that other than the younger set of Pines twins, no one in attendance knew that Stanley Pines was alive and well. Mabel and Dipper had managed to live stream the event so that their grunkles could witness the service and burial. Watching his brother being lowered into the ground beside his twin's own "grave" was enough to send shivers along Ford's spine; and judging by the unusual pallor on his brother's face, Stan was also more than a little uncomfortable to read his own headstone.

But he still had Stan. As sad as it had been to lose Shermie, Ford had never spoken to the man in thirty-plus years. In all honesty, he had lost touch with his older sibling a good two years before being pulled into the portal, and had made no effort to reconnect following his rescue. Though he had made Stan promise to give him his name back following the events of Weirdmageddon, ultimately the twins had decided that Stanley Pines' sudden return from the dead would prove to be unwise. He couldn't risk any information about Bill Cipher and the events of August 2012 leaking, even if it meant keeping his family in the dark.

And then, Stanley died.

It was three years after Sherman's passing, on a cold November night aboard the _Stan O'War II._ Stan had gone to bed as usual, playfully teasing him about the latest anomaly Ford had discovered off the coast of Nova Scotia. And then, he was gone, killed suddenly by a brain aneurysm just before dawn. Ford knew the exact moment his twin had died, the excruciating migraine awaking him with a jolt. Like his great- niece and nephew, he and Stan shared a form of "twin ESP", though usually in mild forms. Whenever one caught a cold or flu bug, the other would experience phantom symptoms before ultimately catching the illness themselves. But never, in all his years, had Stanford Pines felt anything as intense as that brief, yet agonizing pain searing his skull just as his brother passed. He'd sat at Stanley's bedside for hours, crying softly until the last rays of autumn sunshine had faded into darkness, dreading the phone call he knew he'd have to make to Piedmont. He hadn't even cared that he would be essentially blowing their cover, revealing to an incredibly shocked Mark and Amanda Pines that the man they had known as Stanford was a fraud. He'd stood stoically outside the Mystery Shack the day of Stan's burial, oblivious to the biting cold, as his now nineteen-year-old great-niece and nephew watched on. Dipper had stood almost as bravely as he, though he could not quite hide the trembling of his lower lip, steady stream of tears, and occasional sniffle. Mabel, unsurprisingly, had been sobbing bitterly into her handkerchief, occasionally reverting to her childlike demeanour by crying into her grunkle's shoulder. He hadn't minded; the touch had been, in fact, comforting.

The years had passed. Eventually, Mark and Amanda Pines had both died too, and Dipper and Mabel had begrudgingly suggested that their Grunkle Ford move into a retirement home. Initially the old man had objected. He was still young, not even eighty. Maybe he wasn't as spry as he used to be, and it was true that the expeditions and science experiments which had at one point been his life were now few and far between. But he didn't need to be locked up in a goddamned _nursing home!_ But, of course, those knuckleheads had convinced him ("It's for the best, Grunkle Ford," Mabel had insisted) and at seventy-nine, Stanford Filbrick Pines became a resident of the unoriginally named Gravity Falls Retirement Home. He remained there, a shell of his former self, counting down the days until the twins would visit with their families. Though lonely and sometimes bitter, the old man would liven up when Dipper would bring his son and twin daughters. He would spend hours spinning yarns of when he was still in the portal, while young Stanley listened enraptured and the girls amused themselves with Auntie Mabel. Though she was usually away on business trips, Mabel would also visit as often as her hectic schedule would allow, her own daughter taking notes and making plans to study quantum physics. Ford swelled with pride when young Daphne described her plans to follow her great grunkle's footsteps.

The day Ford finally turned ninety-two, he began to count the days, like a condemned man awaiting his fate. He wasn't afraid: in fact, he welcomed death. He half expected to die that very day, or if not, the day before his ninety-third birthday. Knowing Bill, he would have found that to be hilarious; but June 15th came and went, along with it the glorious days of an Oregon summer. The Dog Days pass, bringing a crisp, beautiful autumn unlike any he has seen in his ninety plus years. And still Ford waits.

The day finally comes one snowing afternoon in early February.

At the first hint of pain shooting along his arm, he knows it's time. The light-headedness, the nausea, the shortness of breath… all classic signs of myocardial infarction, more commonly known as a heart attack. As he feels his chest tighten, he reaches blindly, desperate for someone to come to his aid; for even though he knows he is destined to die, and has accepted his fate, a bit of that survivalist instinct from thirty years in an alternate dimension kicks in. He'd hoped that he would go in his sleep, suddenly and as painless as possible. Instead, a wave of dizziness overcomes him, his breathing irregular. He closes his eyes, his life flashing before him: building the _Stan O'War,_ badly sunburned and not caring; reuniting with Stan and meeting Dipper and Mabel ( _"Whoa, a six fingered handshake? It's a full finger friendlier than normal!" "Hehe, I like this kid. She's weird."_ ); holding a new born Stanley while proud father Dipper watches…

"Well, well, wellwellwell! How's it hangin', Sixer?"

All flashes of his past vanish as the triangular shaped dream demon stands before him, twirling his cane as casually as one may swat a pesky fly. Before Ford can question his presence, Bill floats towards him, a devilish gleam in his eye.

"Before you ask, Fordsie, you're hallucinating. Your dumb twin still got me good. Can't believe I fell for the old switcheroo. I'm here because your number's finally up!" The demon tips his hat before snapping his fingers, a baby grand piano similar to the one atop the Fearamid appears. "Thought I'd serenade you to the afterlife, buddy!" Settling down before the keys, Bill begins to sing: _"Happy trails to you, until we meet again…."_

"Can't you let me die in peace, Cipher?"

"No can do, Six Fingers. I've been waiting a long time for this." Bill laughs as Ford gasps for breath, the life slowly draining from his frail body. As he slips away, a menacing, high pitched voice echoes in the stillness.

"It's showtime!"


End file.
